If there’s any consolation, the Tigers still have a 5 1/2 game lead in the AL Central. Five straight losses will have a lot of fans worried though (including me). And with three games at Boston this week, it doesn’t get any easier.

Zach Miner was knocked around in the first two innings so the Tigers had to play from behind the entire game. Once again, Alex Cintron turned out to be the Tiger killer because his three run double was probably the most important hit of the game.

Carlos Guillen made his 22nd error of the season and that leads the majors at any position. If you look at Baseball Prospectus’ fielding runs above average, he’s four runs below average but that was before today. Looking at Win Shares on the Hardball Times, he sits at 3.3 fielding win shares, which is tenth in the American League. Hopefully he’ll be able to get back on track here. His career high for errors is only 18 and he’s already well above that. The good news is, Guillen is second among American League shortstops in total Win Shares because he’s still hitting the ball very well.

Nate Robertson goes up against Josh Beckett tomorrow. To make matters worse, the White Sox have four against the Royals this week, which should put even more pressure on the Tigers just to win to keep that lead. The Royals did sweep the Red Sox earlier this week so I guess anything can happen.

Well Jim Leyland in his postgame comments was yammering about the season still being in the wash and its not even in the rinse cycle and nowhere near the dryer. I have no idea what the hell he is talking about but his team just lost 4 /2 games in less than a week and they are smack dab in the buzzsaw portion of the schedual while the sox, begining a 4 game set with the Royals, are entering the fabled “cat-bird seat” of their schedual. by this time next week the tigers could very well be looking up at the sox. maybe then Leyland might look aback at this series with the sox and admit that yes ideed this was a big series.

I agree entirely with you. Leyland is going around the bend trying to avoid referring to the White Sox business as a rivalry. Sorry, whenever two traditional regional rivals are going at it with a division at stake, that becomes a rivalry. Nothing else to it.

Beating Boston and New York on their own respective turfs would be nice, but I see those two big series left looming and that’s all I focus on. Beat the White Sox, beat the White Sox, beat the White Sox.

Right! smack the white sox and take your chances against boston and the yankees. Now because they showed nothing against the white sox, the next 10 days is packed with nothing but must win games. The tigers put themselves in this situation and its a scary one.

[…] Panic has set in for Detroit Tigers fans after this weekend’s sweep at the hands of the surging White Sox shrunk their NL Central lead to a mere 5.5 games. It gets worse: Now Jimmy Leyland’s floundering bunch visit the Red Sox. Fun. […]

Hey Big Lead! its not Panic… Its what I expected. We have been playing well over our heads. We drew 1 walk against 22 strikeouts in the 3 game set. That is the free swinging approach I have seen from this team for the last 10 years. There is no panic. We stood pat at the trade deadline. We refused to make a move that would put us over the top. We have no boppers to counter Thome, Kornerko, Dye… There is no panic. This is what I expected to happen. If we cannot beat the sox then we will not win the division. (Head to head battles with the team that is either directly above you or below you counts as a big series Leyland!! You moron!). Its not panic but anger! 1 week ago we stood 40 games over with a 10 game lead. Our only move was sean casey. No Tom Gorden for the Pen and no Carlos Lee for the bop. We could have gotten Craig Wilson for peanuts…the yankees did! He hs much more bop than Casey. but we are fixed on that lefty bat. we refused to think creatively. That is no surprise coming from a manager who refuses to use a computer. Long Live the Pony Express!! Right Leyland!!!

I don’t think it’s quite yet the time to panic in Detroit. You have without a doubt the best pitching staff, the lowest ERA in the best hitting division in baseball:

Ave.
2).Twins .286
3).Sox .285
4).Indians .283

What’s even scarier about the Tigers is that your playing .639 on the road (reminds me of the WhtSox last year).

But as a Sox fan, this Friday we begin a 10 game stint with the Twins and you Tigers (7 on the road). Our Sept, schedule does not look any easier!

The sweep this weekend was must win baseball for the White Sox. We brought our “A” game, the Tigers have been cruising for a while. I hope this wakes up the Tiger hitters for Boston.

The Twins, Yankees/Redsox should be our major concern (besides getting our starting pitching right again).

After all, it really doesn’t matter who wins a division, who’s the manager of the year, not even head to head matchup’s during the regular season. Truly, as long as your alive in Oct., throw the prev. 5 months out.

For who ever (from past history) has the best starting 4-man rotation in Oct (with somewhat of a rested bullpen)…